


Birds of a Feather

by A_Farnese



Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [10]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: a quiet afternoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 03:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Farnese/pseuds/A_Farnese
Summary: It was just a joke meant for Arthur, but Bedivere and Merlin are the ones sent out to deal with it one fine summer's day.Set a few months after 'This Rough Magic'
Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/228677
Kudos: 7





	Birds of a Feather

The bird had been meant as a gift. A joke from some uppity lord of the old king’s generation-- Bedivere didn’t remember which one, he’d met so many by midsummer-- to assure Arthur of his acceptance of the legalization of magic. The bird, of course it was a merlin, was a beautiful creature with grey feathers and dark spots of blue and brown patterning its wings and tail. When presented, it had been hooded and jessed as if to say ‘look! Arthur has tamed the wild merlin. Now it is docile and will fly at his whim’.

Arthur had accepted the merlin with suitable grace, though the smile hadn’t reached his eyes. Merlin the man had been serene throughout, but Bedievere thought he wasn’t paying attention to the matter, like his mind had been somewhere else entirely.

Arthur hadn’t wanted the creature and neither had Guinevere, though a merlin was acceptable as a lady’s hawk. The royal couple did not care for what the nobleman’s ‘jest’ suggested, so they decided to release the creature back into the wild once they had traveled a suitable distance away. No one wanted to insult the not-so-clever nobleman. So the day after they arrived at Venta Belgarum on the way home from the long summer progress, Arthur had sent Merlin the sorcerer out to release merlin the bird, with a quiet aside to Bedivere to keep an eye out for trouble. 

Which was why Bedivere was sitting by a waterfall at the edge of a pool in the forest above Venta Belgarum on the hottest day of the year with two merlins-- the bird and the sorcerer-- and a small pack of youths sent along to use up their excess energy before they drove Sir Lanval’s household servants mad. There were some in Arthur’s retinue who, having been plagued with the squires’ antics throughout the royal progress in the eastern marches, would prefer to have the bird return home to Camelot and leave the squires loose in the woods. But Arthur had been insistent. ‘Let the bird go free if it wants. Make sure at least Gareth comes back’.

Bedivere decided not to tell the squires what Arthur had said. Gareth was safe; they couldn’t lose the prince of Amata in a hedgerow and not face uncomfortable questions from his father the king. And Erec was safe, too. He was too deliberate in his actions to be the cause of the problems. He only waded in after the fact. And Stilicho wasn’t a squire; he wasn’t bound to the same expectations of behavior and didn’t behave badly anyway.

But Gaheris... God, but the boy liked to try Bedievere’s patience. Not out of deliberate contrariness. He was smart enough for that. He just enjoyed playing the raconteur and the attention that came from it, whether people laughed at his jokes or not. Bedivere wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that Arthur had made Gaheris his squire, and not assigned the boy to Sir Balan. That worthy could have been named court jester for all that he was good in a fight. Gaheris would be, too, when he learned to stop blathering on.

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” Merlin said from out of the blue.

“What?” Bedivere looked up sharply to find Merlin watching him from his seat among the roots of an old oak.

“Something’s making you scowl like you’re facing a battle in the morning. It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“Maybe I’m thinking about that Saxon raid on the queen’s bridge while we were at Celliwig. They took nearly a dozen of our men hostage, and we could find neither hide nor hair of them afterward. That’s something to be concerned about,” Bedivere growled.

“And yet it’s not what you’re thinking of,” Merlin replied, smiling wanly. “It’s a fine summer’s day. One of the last we’ll have before autumn. You should enjoy it.”

“Says the man who’s hiding in the shade. Are you afraid you’ll turn as red as one of Lady Celia’s roses if you stay out in the sun too long?” He did not add, ‘you could use some color’. A season might have passed since Niniane had poisoned him, but the gauntness lingered in Merlin’s pale face.

“Don’t look at me like that. I get enough of it from Gwen.” The rough edges of Merlin’s voice were only slightly smoothed by his faint smile. He looked down at the bird perched on his knee, half-asleep and unwilling to leave. It had as little sense as its namesake.

Fine, then. He didn’t want to talk about Merlin’s well-being, either. “You know we’re supposed to let the bird loose. Arthur doesn’t want it, nor does the queen.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow, and Bedievere once again felt like a child caught saying something foolish to his mentor. “He’s happy where he is. The hood’s gone, as are the jesses. If he wanted to leave, he would. He wants to stay. For now, at least.”

“What, did you go and make a pet of it?”

“No,” Merlin said shortly, flinching. The bird sensed it, spread its wings, eyes opening wide. He stroked its head and back with a finger until the bird settled at last. Merlin settled, too, melting even farther into the oak's shadow, his head tilted and eyes half-closed as though he were listening to something far away.

Scowling, Bedivere looked towards the boys splashing in the water. He wasn’t ignoring Merlin, per se, but he’d give the sorcerer his distance. It was impossible to know what would set the man off. If Merlin were a squire, he’d sent him off to do some interminable task like polishing armor. But Merlin wasn’t a squire. He was a sorcerer who could burn cities down, and he had his moods. All Bedivere could do was wait him out. He’d return to brighter spirits soon enough.

There was a cry from the pool. Bedivere was halfway to his feet and reaching for the sword at his waist before he knew it, ready to defend the boys from whatever enemy had found his way to the water.

There was no enemy, though. The cry came from Stilicho, who was sputtering after a violent splash. Gareth grabbed his shoulders and pulled Stilicho behind him. Then Erec, with a crafty smile, swept Gaheris’s legs out from under him, laying the taller boy out in the cold water.

Gaheris vanished for a moment, then with a frothy splash and a gasp, shot upright with a squawk. “What was that for?”

“Because you don’t attack the physician, you git,” Erec said. “Unless want to die of something stupid later on.”

“Like what? Accidentally smelling your breath?”

“I clean my teeth every night! It’s not my fault you have a hound’s nose,” Erec said, scowling.

“Enough of that,” Gareth laughed. “Though he’s not wrong, Erec. You could clean your teeth a bit better.”

“I can make something for that. With a bit of salt and ground cloves. Your teeth will be cleaner, and your breath will smell better.” Stilicho peered around Gareth, eyebrows raised, a hopeful expression on his face, as though the offer of a tooth-cleaning powder would bring an end to hostilities.

“Salt and cloves?” Gaheris frowned. “Doesn’t sound like it would taste very good.”

“If you don’t want to use what Stil has graciously offered, then you can use some water.” With a smooth motion, Gareth directed a stream of water into Gaheris’s face. The other boy sputtered, took a step backward, and lost his footing, falling into the water with another squawk.

“He can’t win, can he?” Stilicho asked.

Gareth shrugged and clapped the smaller boy on the shoulder. “He’ll learn. Someday. And then-- maybe-- he’ll win.”

Chuckling, Bedivere sat down, his eyes still on the boys as they pulled Gaheris back up and out of the water and continued their friendly squabbling.

The noise had roused Merlin from his reverie, his thoughtful gaze on Stilicho.

“Something the matter?” Bedivere asked sharply. He’d heard Arthur mutter about the strange hints of disaster Merlin had warned him of in days past, how his warnings came as tangled prophecies and off-handed comments Merlin was only half-aware of saying aloud.

“No, everything’s fine. Just thinking.”

‘From your mouth to God’s ears,’ Bedivere wanted to say. Instead, he said, “Stil’s a good lad. Seems to be learning quickly.” Perhaps the lead would give Merlin something to latch onto. “He gets on well with Gareth. That’ll earn him a good position in the Amatan court if he plays his cards right.”

“Indeed,” Merlin said dryly. Then he shook his head and smiled. “Give him a few years, and he’ll be able to earn a position in any royal court, given the skills he already has. But you’re right. He’d follow Gareth to the ends of the earth.”

There was something in that, something Bedivere was missing. But he wasn’t clever enough to figure it out. He glanced back at the boys, whose energetic splashing was dying down. “It’s good to have someone you can count on in life. Someone you’d follow to the ends of the earth. Better than the alternative.”

“Are you trying to ask me something without actually asking me?” Merlin said, giving Bedivere a sidelong glance. The falcon shifted again and wouldn’t be comforted.

Bedivere sucked in a breath. “I-- I, uh…” He couldn’t finish the thought. Was he trying to find out something, nosing about like a hound after a scent? “No. Not really. Arthur asked me to keep an eye on you, is all. Last time we were here, you went off into the hills for most of a week and came back acting strange.” Stranger, he should have said. When Merlin had come back from his little sojourn, he’d seemed half-mad, laughing at things no sane man should be joking about and muttering about the stars going silent. “And then everything else happened, with Gaius and-- and Niniane.”

“You don’t have to say her name like that. I won’t start weeping at the sound of it,” Merlin said, his voice barely loud enough to carry over the sound of running water. The boys were quiet, having abandoned the water for a patch of sunlight on the pool’s far side. “There was a part of me that knew it couldn’t last. Though I wouldn’t have dreamed it would end like that.”

“Merlin,” Bedievere said flatly, “I don’t think that anyone in their wildest dreams could have imagined things ending like that. It’s not as though it’s the usual thing for a woman to not realize she’s poisoning the man she says she loves.”

“It wasn’t her fault. She’d been cursed. I’ve seen such things before, seen people driven to do things they never would have done if they’d had their wits about them. It takes a lot of luck to break a curse before the endgame is played out,” he finished softly. A breeze blew through the trees, rustling the leaves until they sounded the same as the falling water. Merlin’s eyes drifted shut. His head tilted, listening again. Then he sighed. “There are times where I hear her voice in the wind. I hear her singing.”

A chill shivered down Bedivere’s spine, and he stared down at his hands. “Is she a ghost? Or something?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ve seen ghosts before, and this feels different.”

“Different how?” Bedivere asked slowly, wishing that Arthur hadn’t had business to attend to so he could have come instead. He knew how to deal with Merlin’s strangeness. Bedivere was just a man with a sword.

“I don’t know. It’s not like hearing someone singing from the next room. It’s more like,” Merlin paused and spun a leaf between his fingers. “It’s like an echo out of time. And if I only knew how, I could step outside of time and find her.”

It was an effort not to give Merlin a wide-eyed stare or make a warding sign against evil. Father Gildas’s stories of death and resurrection were eerie enough for his mundane blood. Let Arthur handle the sorcerer’s uncanny tales. If he could bring himself to face the king’s ire, he’d tell Arthur to send someone else out with Merlin next time. Gwaine or Leon knew Merlin better, were less apt to have their blood chilled to ice by the sorcerer’s words. “I, uh. I trust you’ll not being doing that any time soon?”

“Stepping outside of time? I’ve done that before. It’s not so difficult as it might seem,” Merlin said absently, his eyes on the bird. “But no, I won’t go searching for her. When she left, she didn’t want to be found. So I won’t go looking.”

“That’s good.” Bedivere scowled, feeling like a dullard. “Your bird seems upset.”

“He is,” Merlin stroked its back with a finger. The bird’s eyes were wide and darting about, its wings spreading wide again. “I think I heard another merlin calling just now.”

“You mean, it wasn’t… Niniane you were listening for?” 

“Perhaps not.” Merlin had the temerity to laugh at the suggestion. “But there is another bird out there. Another merlin. I think this one is ready to leave.” He coaxed the little falcon back onto his gloved wrist, his free hand flicking over his knee before grabbing the tree to pull himself up. He walked to the pool’s edge.

“Are we leaving?” Gareth asked, sitting up.

“No, the bird is,” Merlin replied. 

“That’s too bad. It’s a beautiful bird.”

“He is. But he wants to go free now. I think a lady falcon is up in the trees and waiting to meet him,” Merlin said. 

“Lucky her,” Gaheris said, smirking. 

“Yeah. That bird will have more fun in the next week that you will in the next five years.” Gareth grinned, and though his eyes were on the open sky, he blocked Gaheris’s annoyed swat. 

Then a gray shape cried out and darted out of the trees above, spiraling upward into the blue. With an answering call, the merlin launched itself off Merlin’s wrist with a quiet flutter of its wings, barely clearing the waterfall as it wheeled about until it gained enough speed to follow the female up and up into the sky, spiraling after her until they were mere specks before diving into the canopy and disappearing from sight. 

“So it’s done,” Merlin said. His voice was sad, though his eyes were bright. 

“Birds of a feather,” Bedivere added, shrugging. It was a bird, that was all. They’d had it for a few weeks and now it was gone. No sense in being sentimental about it. “Go and get dried off. We’ll be leaving soon. It’s getting late,” he told the boys. 

They grumbled. None of them wanted to leave their fun and go back to boring responsibilities. “Come on. If we’re late, we’ll miss supper and you’ll be eating whatever is leftover. And in meager portions,” he said, holding back a smirk. Nothing would get them moving faster than threatening them with missing a meal. Merlin knew that, too. His smirk wasn’t so well hidden.

Bedivere grinned and went to get the horses. They were right where he’d left them, dozing in the heat or nibbling at the grass. “Gaheris! Get your boots on and come help me with the horses.” They needed to water the beasts before they headed home, and he couldn’t handle four at once. Merlin’s horse came and went as it pleased. No one could convince the sorcerer that he needed to keep it on a picket line with the others. And no one had told the horse it was free to run away if it wanted to. Like the bird, apparently, it stayed because it wanted to. The uncanny beast.

“My feet are still wet. My socks are going to be soaked through,” Gaheris grumbled as he walked up and took the two sets of reins Bedivere handed him. 

“There are worse things to have soaked through. It’s a warm day. You’ll dry out.”

“Gareth’ll complain that my feet smell.”

“If you’d wash your feet more often, he wouldn’t have room to complain.”

Gaheris scowled. “I thought you’d take my side more often.”

“It’s my duty to train you to be a knight of Camelot, lad, not to treat you with kid gloves. If it comes to battle, I’d lay down my life for you like I would for any other knight or squire of the realm, but I’ll not be gentle with you for the sake of it.” Bedievere looked over at Merlin, who was talking to Stilicho. The boy had looked down and was smiling shyly. “Those two, and others like them-- they’re the ones you treat with those kid gloves. Merlin might be able to defend himself, but Stilicho can’t. It’s your duty to protect him. Yours and all the squires. They say birds of a feather flock together. You’re noblemen’s sons. Eagles, all of you. So you learn to fly together. To fight together. You start doing that, and I’ll start taking your side more often.” Gaheris’s shoulders slumped, but there was a thoughtful frown on his face as he led the horses toward the stream. 

“Give it time, lad,” Bedivere added as he followed behind. “Eventually, you’ll learn to be funny.” That earned him a scowl that he answered with a grin. There was no better answer for it on a day like today, riding through golden sunshine to achieve a simple task everyone would return home safely from. No enemies to fight or flee, no impossible task to fail. 

“It’s been a good day, hasn’t it?” Merlin asked softly.

Bedivere looked at him, at the boys working with their horses, the waterfall, the deep blue sky above. “It has been,” he agreed. “You couldn’t ask for better. Now come on. It’s time to go. They’ll leave us all behind.” He gestured at the squires, already leading their horses away from the water and into the trees. 

“They know the way home,” Merlin said, smiling. But he took up his horse’s reins and headed after the boys. 

A knot of tension unwound itself from Bedivere’s shoulders. He glanced around the pool, a hand on the hilt of his sword like he expected a band of Saxons to leap out of the trees or come up from the water. All was quiet. Like he knew it would be. Instinct died hard, though. He’d spent his life training to watch for danger. He couldn’t stop doing it because it was a peaceful summer’s day. That was why he’d never understand Merlin the way Arthur did, would never not be unnerved by the sorcerer’s uncanny pronouncements. He was a warrior; a sword arm. That was all. Yet it was enough to make him useful. 

Useful enough that Arthur would trust him to protect some of the people he cared the most about in the world. If you looked at it like that, it wasn't such a bad fate. Grinning, he set out after them. Towards home.


End file.
